11.3% Growth for SES channels

It’s been a great year for satellite operator SES, whose channel growth has risen by 11.3 per cent. The strongest growth has been found in the emerging markets (Latin America, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa—40 per cent of the total of channels), and the operator as a whole grew to carry 7,268 channels.

Broadcasters in Europe and the USA have shown interest in Ultra-HD, with seven channels signed up already, and significant growth in 4k/UHD predicted in coming years.

“[Our] superior development was driven by the continued introduction of new High Definition (HD) channels across Europe and North America, as well as the further expansion of SES’s Video business across emerging markets. Nearly 60 per cent of all channels on the SES fleet are now broadcast in the MPEG-4 compression standard,” says SES.

Average industry growth is usually around 2 per cent.

Online copyright enforcement: policies and mechanisms report

With 14.4 million downloads, ‘Game of Thrones’ kept its crown as the most pirated TV show on the internet for the fourth year running. With 14.4 million downloads of the season finale alone, it proves that internet piracy is booming.

The European Audiovisual Observatory has just published a brand new report, Online copyright enforcement: policies and mechanisms, offers free and important insight in how Europe can protect audiovisual content online.

E4 and Netflix join forces

Building on the success of past production collaborations, E4 have just signed with Netflix to co-produce a new series from the creator of Skins. The new series focuses on the world of online gaming and is part of a drive to ramp up drama that appeals to the youth market.

Hit shows ‘Humans’, co-produced with US cable network AMC, and Indian Summers, which was part funded by PBS’s Masterpiece, Channel 4 bosses want at least 80 per cent of all dramas across C4 and E4 to be co-produced.

“Drama on E4 is going to start to look very different,” said Channel 4 head of drama Piers Wenger. “It’ll be much easier for our original commissions to hold a candle to a lot of the US acquisitions.”

Robot Wars welcomed back to BBC2

Robot Wars has been commissioned for another run on BBC2, to the delight of fans everywhere. The classic series originally ran from 1998 to 2002 on the BBC, before Channel 5 aired the final season.

The reboot will return for six x 60-minute shows, filmed in front of a live audience who are protected by a bulletproof glass arena. Social media has already been buzzing in anticipation, with many fans ecstatic about a return of their favourite childhood TV show.

“The redeveloped Robot Wars proved compelling—offering a mix of real people, real passion and raw power,” said acting controller of entertainment Alan Tyler. He added that it was to be filmed in a “literally bullet-proof” purpose-built arena in Glasgow, with the audience brought closer to the destructive machines using state-of-the-art cameras.